MS’s Remote Desktop Connection 2 for Mac finally out of beta

After kicking around as a beta application for almost a year, Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Mac has become someone of a running joke. A beta version of the software even expired in April with no update in sight. After releasing yet another beta version and letting that percolate for a few months, the application is finally done. That's right, Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2 (RDC 2 to its friends) is now officially out and ready to go.

Since the first beta with many of the big new features was released so long ago, a brief overview of the changes from RDC 1 is probably in order. RDC 2 now supports multiple sessions, and also includes the new RDP protocol (meaning that it works better with Windows Vista). The user interface has changed quite a bit, and the application now has far more preferences that can be customized. Screen resizing and printing were also beefed up as part of the first beta.

More recently, connections were changed to use individual files, Network Level Authorization (NLA) was added to improve security with Vista, and help topics and keyboard support were added for seven non-English languages. RDC 2 is a free download and a Universal Binary, so anyone who has been waiting to upgrade or who wants to give it a whirl can grab it from the Mactopia site. The fact that the official RDC application has finally been released should make quite a few people happy, so get busy downloading.